


Let's Do This Again Never

by ChasingRabbits



Series: Rock 'n' Roll Queer Bar [4]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bottom Castiel, Bottom Dean, Drunken Shenanigans, Dysfunctional Family, Family Drama, Fuckery, Homophobia, M/M, Marijuana, Recreational Drug Use, Road Trips, Thanksgiving Dinner, Top Castiel, Top Dean, Topping from the Bottom, a lot of feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 19:08:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1196208
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasingRabbits/pseuds/ChasingRabbits
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After two years of being cut off from his family, Castiel's mother finally makes contact with him and convinces him to come to Thanksgiving dinner. </p><p>With fifteen hundred miles of road in front of them and no desire to go, Dean and Castiel set out for what is meant to be a nice family holiday.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Let's Do This Again Never

Castiel decided to drop out of school.

Castiel decided to stay in Nebraska.

Castiel decided to cut up every single one of his credit cards before anyone could even have the satisfaction of declining them.

His mother thought that it was a threat, when she said she’d never speak to him again. In reality, it’s been the most amazing two years of his life. Sure, it was scary at first, but then he realized that he didn’t have to ask permission from anyone, for anything. He could do as he pleased, when he so pleased, and without an overbearing mother to tell him what to do, he could enjoy himself without fear of admonition.

Best of all, not talking to his mother meant not having to lie to her. As long as she doesn’t know about him and Dean, she can’t care, and as long as they’re not talking, there’s no way she’ll ever know.

Hell, the only one in his family who knows about Dean is Gabriel, but he (somehow) manages to talk to their mother even less than Castiel does.

It’s a shame—a mother should know that her son has an amazing (albeit dorky and smart-mouthed) boyfriend, that even though her son waits tables in a rustic little roadhouse in Nebraska, sometimes he makes more in tips than he would get in a whole paycheck at Walgreens, or at the library.

Drunk queers are very generous to guys with symmetrical faces and tight butts.

“How much you get?” asks Dean, pulling a wad out of his apron at closing time.

“I don’t know,” Castiel shrugs, finally sitting down after far too long on his feet. He dips into the pocket of his apron and pulls out his own handful of tips.

“Lord,” Ellen shakes her head from where she wipes down the bar. “You boys still doin’ that?”

“I didn’t ask to be man candy,” Dean replies absently as he thumbs through the bills in his hand. Castiel snorts. “One forty-three,” he finishes counting.

Castiel breaks out into a grin and fans out the cash in front of him. “One fifty, even,” he boasts, and makes it a point to improvise an admittedly horrible victory dance.

“How!” Dean exclaims. “You’re—”

“A sexy beast, I know,” Castiel nods. Dean flips him off, and Castiel lets out a mad cackle that makes Dean hide his face in the crook of his neck and snort. Ellen rolls her eyes at the display, but it’s all in good spirits.

“I don’t think I’ve ever met a bigger pair of dorks in my life,” she mutters.

Maybe she hasn’t. Castiel knows he’s always set the bar pretty high as far as dorkiness goes, but with Dean, he’s off the charts.

“All right, out with the both of you,” Ellen shoos them. “I gotta close up.”

“We can help,” Castiel offers, but Ellen shakes her head.

“I’m not reliving last time you two helped me close up,” she says pointedly. Castiel’s ears go red, and Dean clears his throat. “Now go on, before I show you the business end of my boot.”

“Yes ma’am,” Dean salutes. Before Castiel can protest and insist that they stay and help, Dean loops his hand around Castiel’s wrist and pulls him along and out to the truck.

Dean presses him against the driver’s side door, boxing him in with strong arms, nudging a thick, warm thigh against Castiel’s crotch. The smell of liquor and sawdust mixes with Dean’s sweat and skin and kicks Castiel’s mind into overdrive. He wraps his arms around Dean’s neck and pulls him into a heated kiss, frotting against Dean’s leg as his tongue plies his mouth open.

It’s a miracle they make it home with all their clothes on; they can’t be held responsible for where they end up.

In this particular instance, they don’t even make it to the couch.

“ _Dean_ ,” Castiel gasps as Dean swallows down his cock. His toes curl as Dean’s hand and mouth work over him, making these lewd sucking sounds that make Castiel’s blood pump even harder. “Can’t make it to the couch?” he asks.

Dean hums around him, the vibrations causing a hitch in Castiel’s breath. Dean pulls back (with a disturbingly loud slurp that makes Castiel laugh and nudge him with his foot) and chuckles against Castiel’s thigh, pressing kisses into the sensitive skin.

“Need you,” Dean murmurs, licking at the juncture of his hip and leg. “Right here. Can’t wait.”

Castiel moans as Dean’s mouth slides over him again, and he arches into the sensation.

Dean’s head bobs steadily, his tongue flicks expertly all over every single one of Castiel’s hot spots. For a second, he thinks this may be as far as they’ll get tonight, exchanging languid, mind-numbing blowjobs.

Except as soon as he’s teetering on the edge, hands in Dean’s hair, encouraging him on with a “God yes, you’re so good, _fuck I’m gonna come_ ”—

Dean just stops.

He pulls back, pupils blown wide with lust, pretty mouth red and slick stretched wide in a grin. 

“What?” Castiel pants.

“Hang on,” Dean pushes himself up and, cock bobbing heavily between his legs, darts back to their room. Castiel has enough sense to know that they won’t be able to finish before Ellen gets home, because they never do. So he rolls shakily to his feet and follows Dean, shutting their bedroom door behind him.

His heart stops at the sight before him. Dean, perched on the edge of their bed, with two shiny, lubed up fingers pumping in and out of himself.

“Hey,” Dean pouts, redness high tinting the apples of his cheeks. “You were supposed to wait out there.”

“No,” Castiel lets out a disbelieving laugh. “No, I don’t think I was if this is what I was going to miss.”

Dean gets impossibly redder.

“Shut up,” he mutters. “I was gonna come back out all ready and raring to go.”

“Oh?” Castiel teases, tip of his tongue running over his lips as he reaches for his cock. He sighs, “What were you getting ready and raring to go for?”

Dean whines and shuts his eyes.

And then he takes a breath, opening his eyes as he admits through a crooked smile, “Was gonna come out there and ride the everloving fuck out of your cock.”

Castiel lets out an inhuman noise at that and surges forward, pinning Dean back against the bed. He runs his mouth over every part of him, over his jaw and down his neck, tonguing the hard lines of ink on his shoulder, his bicep, his forearm.

“C’mon and do it then,” he goads, lapping up the little puddle of precome on his belly, close to the head of his erection, but _not quite there_.

“Yeah, fucker?” Dean laughs, and quicker than Castiel thought possible, Dean has him on the floor again, pinned down by his shoulders.

He grabs Castiel and sinks down slowly, tight heat engulfing his cock and sending all sorts of unearthly sounds out of his throat.

“Loud motherfucker,” Dean sighs as he gets himself fully seated.

“You love it,” Castiel punctuates with a thrust upward. Dean gasps, which turns into a breathless peal of laughter when Castiel rolls his hips and bids, “Ride me, cowboy.”

“Fuck you,” Dean snorts, unable to keep the goofy smile off his face.

They move together, completely in synch with one another. It would be frightening if it wasn’t so damn sexy, the way that Dean knows just how to angle his hips to pull a certain sound out of Castiel, or the way that Castiel knows just what that bobbing Adam’s apple and little knit between Dean’s eyebrows means.

He reaches down and takes Dean in his hand, stroking him along with their movements.

“You’re almost there, baby,” Castiel mutters. “You’re being so good.”

Dean’s hands land on his shoulders, his fingernails digging into the sweaty skin and taut muscles as he rides faster and faster. Castiel doesn’t move his hand, just lets whatever friction that occurs naturally pull Dean closer and closer to the edge.

“Come for me,” Castiel commands softly, no edge or harshness to his voice. “Ride me ‘til you come.”

Sweat rolls down Castiel’s forehead and catches at his temples. He’d wipe it away, but he can’t pull his attention from Dean. His entire body is blotched with red and pink, making his pale freckles stand out considerably. 

He squeezes Castiel’s shoulders hard and comes, thick white spurts splashing onto Castiel’s torso. Castiel lets him ride it out, waiting until he slows down and tries to catch his breath to roll them over and press Dean down into the carpet.

“ _Shit_ , Cas,” Dean hiccups, wrapping his arms and legs around Castiel as he rolls into him. “God yeah, fuck me hard.”

Castiel groans in the back of his throat and obliges. He comes not long after, pumping into Dean and resting his sweaty forehead against his shoulder. Dean’s limbs drop boneless to the floor and Castiel rolls off of him.

A thought crosses Castiel’s mind just then, and he laughs.

“What?” Dean pants beside him.

“Nice ridin’, Tex,” Castiel replies in what proves to be a very misinformed southern twang, and the two of them break out into uncontrollable fits of laughter.

Never has Castiel felt so much for one person. True, he loves his family, in the loosest sense of the word, and he’s had sexual chemistry with plenty of other people before, but Dean just clicks with him.

They fit together in a way that Castiel doesn’t think he could fit with any other person.

And when they finally move from the floor and dress for bed, when they make fun of each other’s sex-mussed hair and love bites, when they hip check each other in front of the mirror as they brush and floss their teeth, when they finally crawl under the covers and curl into each other’s heat, Castiel realizes.

He realizes after two years that he really, really loves Dean Winchester.

**oo**

It’s nine in the morning when Castiel’s phone buzzes with a text message.

“Fuck,” Dean groans. “Who the hell is that?”

Castiel grabs his phone off of the nightstand and sees Gabriel’s name written across the screen. He frowns, as the text below reads, ‘ _SORRYSORRYSORRYFUCKSORRY’_ .

“What the hell?” he grunts.

And then a call comes through, from a number unrecognized by his phone.

“Who the hell is calling me from a 949 number?” he swipes at his screen and answers, “Hello?”

“Castiel?” comes a familiar voice.

No, familiar is too kind a sentiment.

One would _recognize_ the sound of fingernails on a chalkboard, but one would not call it familiar.

“Mother?”

Dean wakes in an instant, ears perked up and eyes alert as Castiel’s mother continues, “Thank God it’s you, I was concerned Gabriel might have given me another fake number.”

“Gabriel,” Castiel sighs, covering his eyes with his hand. “Of course.”

“It’s been a long time since we’ve talked, Castiel,” says his mother. “And I do think it’s about time we buried this hatchet, yes?”

“What do you want, mother?”

“No need to be hostile,” mother tuts. “As you know, it’s Thanksgiving this Thursday.”

“Yes, mother, I know that from owning a calendar,” Castiel groans, and Dean snorts and punches him in the leg. “Ow!”

“Castiel?” Mother asks. “What’s that, who’s there?”

“Apparently strange bedfellows weren’t enough for me, I had to have a violent one,” Castiel smacks Dean on the shoulder.

“Castiel!” his mother admonishes. “I know you’re out in the middle of hickville, but there’s no need to be crass.”

“Mother, is there a reason you called?” Castiel pinches the bridge of his nose. He can feel a migraine coming on, like a fishing line trying to tug his eyeballs out through the back of his skull.

“Yes, as a matter of fact there is,” mother says. “I thought it would be nice if you would join us for Thanksgiving dinner.”

Castiel nearly drops his phone.

“I—what?”

“No need to sound so surprised, Castiel,” his mother sighs primly. “We’ll have you here, of course.”

“Mom, I don’t—”

“We’d prefer you were here Wednesday,” she continues. “Your brothers were going to come Wednesday too, but since they’re bringing the grandchildren we’ll be too full. We’ll see you Wednesday—”

“Can I bring someone?” he eyes Dean intensely, and gets nothing but a confused  _‘what the hell_?’ mouthed at him in response. 

“Oh,” his mother pauses. “Well, I had no idea you were seeing anyone. Yes, of course you’re welcome to bring someone.” 

“Okay,” Castiel nods.

He thinks his mother might say goodbye, but he doesn’t hear her over the cascade of blood rushing into his ears. He hangs up and drops the phone on the bed like a hot potato.

“Cas?” Dean lays a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, what was that, what’d she say?”

“We’re,” Castiel clears his throat. “We’ll be going to Thanksgiving dinner at my family’s house.”

Dean’s eyebrows shoot up on his forehead. “We’re what now?”

“She tricked me!” Castiel exclaims. “Swindled! I was swindled out of my holiday.”

“You’re the one who agreed to go,” Dean points out, and Castiel’s breaths get shorter and shorter with each rise and fall of his chest. “Why the hell didn’t you just say no?”

“She didn’t give me much of a choice, Dean,” Castiel chokes and turns to rifle through the nightstand. He empties the drawer, tossing aside the box of condoms and the slippery bottle of lube, a couple of books and—god—an old _Penthouse_ , until he feels his fingers close around his inhaler.

He takes a great big puff in and holds it until his head just starts to swim.

He lets it out.

Already that’s at least twenty percent better.

He looks down at the tangle of sheets between them, where the crinkled up old magazine lays, and blinks.

“Are you thirteen?” his lungs burn a little on the exhale as he plucks the magazine from the bed. “And stuck in the seventies?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean snatches it back from him.

“You know we have internet,” says Castiel. “Wireless even, after you bitched about not being able to browse porn on the couch.”

“It’s vintage,” Dean explains more loudly than he needs to. “And come on, that’s not the issue right now. Your mom just put you back in seventh grade gym class, what’s going on?”

“All this time,” Castiel lets out a breath. “Two years of making a solid effort to detach myself from my family and that life and she undoes it all with a phone call.”

Dean sighs and scoots closer to him.

“Can I touch you?” he asks, and Castiel nods. Dean’s arm slides around his shoulders and his lips land on his cheek.

“Plane tickets are going to be through the roof expensive,” Castiel bemoans, hiding his face in his hands.

“Let’s just drive,” Dean suggests quickly. “I mean, better than killing ourselves over getting to and from the airport. And hey, if you’re family are dicks then we can just high-tail it on out of there.”

Castiel sighs and flops back on the bed.

His phone rings again.

“If it’s a 949 number, don’t answer it,” he instructs as Dean picks up the phone.

“It’s Gabriel,” Dean passes it over, and Castiel slides into the call.

“There is no apology on the planet that can make up for the grave injustices visited upon me this morning.”

“And good morning to you too,” Gabriel comes back.

“You know full well what kind of morning it’s been,” Castiel snaps.

“I’m sorry!” Gabriel exclaims. “Look, you’re lucky she didn’t weasel outta me that you’re living in sin with a Tuscaloosa hillbilly.”

“Tuscaloosa hillbilly,” Castiel parrots to Dean. “That’s a new one.”

“He knows Tuscaloosa is nowhere in the realm of being close to here, right?” Dean asks, reaching his arms above his head to pop the joints in his back.

“Whatever, man, I’m not spending another year alone at that fuckin’ shit show,” Gabriel says. There’s a longish pause, followed by a couple of swift coughs.

“It’s not even eight in the morning and you’re getting high?” asks Castiel.

“Don’t harsh my mellow before it even gets going, man,” Gabriel replies all too seriously. “And fuck you, it’s not all bad. You’ll get to meet some nieces and nephews. That’ll be fun.”

“Truthfully, my definition of ‘fun’ does not include entertaining Michael and Lucifer’s children,” Castiel rolls so his head rests in Dean’s lap. He noses at Dean’s belly through his t-shirt and sighs when he starts to pet his hair.

“Who said you entertain them?” asks Gabriel. “They’re all the entertainment you could want. They’re loud, they fall down, they cry, they laugh at dumb shit… it’s like babysitting a brood of little drunk people, it’s great.”

“Great,” Castiel repeats and grabs onto Dean’s shirt. The crushing weight of his impending week sits on his chest.

“You flying out?” Gabe asks. “I’ll pick you up at LAX, no sweat.”

“Uh, I think we’re driving out,” Castiel glances up at Dean, who gives a very adamant nod. “Yeah, driving.”

“We?” Gabriel asks. “Don’t tell me I finally get to meet Dean Winchester.”

“Yes, you would finally get to meet Dean,” Castiel nods.

“You’re bringing him to meet everyone?”

“I’m bringing him because he will not let me kill myself on the way there,” Castiel explains. “The fact that he’ll be meeting everyone is merely coincidence.”

“So you’re gonna tell ‘em then,” Gabriel ventures, and Castiel’s eyes shoot open.

He hadn’t even thought about that. He sits up, weight on his chest and all, and rubs a hand over his face.

“I suppose I am,” he concludes. “Shit.”

“Indeed,” Gabriel agrees. “All right, I’m gonna go back to sleep.”

“Yeah,” Castiel nods. “I’ll see you soon, I guess.”

Castiel turns his phone off entirely after that and shuts it up in their nightstand. 

“Demon phone,” he mutters and pulls the covers up over his head. Maybe if he hides, the morning won’t have happened. Maybe when he emerges, he’ll wake up from whatever outlandish nightmare this has become and hold Dean as closely as he can. He doesn’t need to see his family, because this is his family. In this room, in this bed, Dean is his family. And Ellen and Jo are Dean’s family, so now they are Cas’ family too. 

Family makes soup for you when you’re sick, and goofs on TV shows with you and reassures you at the end of a bad day that everything is going to be all right, even when it seems like it won’t be. 

“Hey,” Dean’s hand lands on Castiel’s face. 

“Ow.” 

“Sorry,” Dean peels back the covers. “Couldn’t see you under there.” 

He leans down and pecks a kiss to Castiel’s forehead. He says, “You and me, Cas. As long as it’s the both of us, we’ll be fine. I got your back.” 

“Even if I go in shooting?” Castiel asks. 

“Especially if you go in shooting,” Dean slides down beside him and wraps him up in his arms. God, being held by this man is nothing short of ecstasy. “Hey, man, for a bleeding-heart liberal California boy you’re not a bad shot. I’d want you on my side in a zombie apocalypse hands down.” 

“Yeah?” Cas settles in closer to him. “You’d stick with me through a zombie apocalypse?” 

“Yep.”

“How romantic,” Castiel teases, edge slightly worn by the way Dean’s thumb strokes his bicep through the worn cotton of his sleep shirt. 

“Yeah, don’t tell anyone I’m such a sap,” Dean hums and kisses Castiel’s cheek. “C’mon, I wanna go back to sleep.”

Castiel sighs. “I don’t think I could if I tried,” he mutters. “I think I’m just going to get up and do... something. I don’t know. Go for a run, maybe.”

“Ugh,” Dean groans and rolls over to face the wall. “Gross. Have… fun, I guess? That sounds so wrong.”

Castiel shakes his head and quickly swaps out his sleep pants for a pair of shorts. He ties his shoes on his feet, sticks his headphones in his ears, and leans over to kiss Dean goodbye before he leaves the house. 

It’s a nice morning—chilly, but nice. There’s just enough nip in the air to take his mind off of the gut rotting realization that in four days, he will be seeing his family again for the first time in a very, very long time.

**oo**

In the last twenty-four hours, Castiel has managed to bite every last one of his fingernails down to the nib. 

Dean says getting to Newport Beach is twenty-one hours by car, which is fine by Castiel. Any way to delay the inevitable is absolutely perfect. 

Castiel packs, unpacks, and then packs again. He makes lists of what he’ll need, and then copies them thrice over to make sure that they’re complete and correct. 

“You forgot to put lube, Einstein,” Dean remarks through a full mouth, checking over the newest final list. 

“You have it on you at all times,” says Castiel as he folds up one of his nicer shirts. “I assumed that was the one thing you could be solely responsible for.” 

That had apparently been the wrong thing to say.

_“No need to be a dick.”_

_“I’m a little stressed out here, Dean.”_

_“Doesn’t mean you have to be a dick.”_

_“I’m not being a dick! You’re not even helping!”_

_“Because this is the most insane thing I’ve ever seen you do!”_

_“Well, pardon me for having a family I actually have to impress.”_

The last twenty-four hours have not been wonderful. 

Castiel doesn’t get a wink of sleep the night before they’re supposed to leave. Dean wants to get an early start, says if they drive most of the way out tomorrow that they’ll be in good shape for a more leisurely drive on Wednesday.

So, they’re leaving at five in the morning.

Castiel is still pretty sure he hasn’t packed everything he’ll need, and while he flips around like a flapjack on a griddle, Dean sleeps out on the couch.

And because Castiel doesn’t quite feel like giving him the satisfaction of an apology, he glowers up at the ceiling until his alarm goes off at quarter ‘til five. 

As he pulls on his jeans and a clean t-shirt, he’s struck by a thought. 

What if Dean doesn’t want to come with him now? Then he’s really screwed. 

He pulls on his worn out sneakers and pads out into the living room. Dean is nowhere to be found, though the distinct smell of coffee hangs in the air. 

A minute later, Dean appears wordlessly from the kitchen and presses a travel mug into his hands. 

When he cocks his head in question, Dean leans forward and gives him a terse, quick peck on the lips. 

“Heard you tossing and turning all night,” he mutters. “Figured we could both use a little pick me up.”

“Thank you,” Castiel looks down at the blue mug in his hands. “I’m sorry, Dean. I lost my temper.” 

“Yeah, well,” Dean clears his throat, deep voice made gravelly by the early hour and his own sleep deficit. “God knows I’m not super helpful when it comes to you getting stressed out. C’mon,” he pats Castiel on the shoulder. “Let’s blow this joint before we fall asleep standin’ up. If I get the first shift, you cool taking the second?” 

Castiel nods. 

He sleeps through most of Nebraska, waking only when they stop in North Platte to get some gas and fill up their coffee. 

“You want anything special, blue eyes?” Dean asks through the window. Castiel grunts and rubs the sleep out of his eyes. 

“Do not call me blue eyes,” he requests. 

“Yeah, sure thing, sugar dick,” Dean nods, and Castiel flips him off. He knows that Dean is trying to be cheerful and upbeat for him, to deter his attention from the storm ahead, but it’s not working. 

Perhaps another nap would help remedy this. It’s only nine o’clock, he could squeeze in another quick one before it’s his turn to drive. He drives much better when he’s well-rested anyway. 

The next time he wakes, they’re near a town called Riverside Park in Colorado, and he is starving. 

“There’s a Sonic up here,” Dean mentions off-handedly. 

“God, yes please,” Castiel sighs and sits up at the promise of food. 

Castiel doesn’t know that a cheeseburger has ever tasted this good. 

“Goddamn, when I die,” Dean says around a mouthful. “Fill my coffin with these things, or I will come back and haunt your goofy ass.” 

Castiel nearly chokes on his laughter, trying not to cough up flecks of food. 

“And instead of a confetti cannon,” Dean wields a single tater tot between his fingers. “You are to make sure I have tot cannons. Cas, I’m serious. You can’t back down, okay, this is what partnership is.” 

Castiel manages to swallow the food in his mouth, and so continues laughing, gasping for air as he does. 

“I want to be buried as I lived,” Dean takes another bite of his double bacon cheeseburger and clutches it warmly to his chest, as one would a newborn child. 

“A noble endeavor, to be sure,” Castiel finally catches his breath. “Wow.”

“Glad I got you smilin’,” Dean’s lips quirk up. “These last couple days, I thought you mighta forgotten how.” 

He knows it’s not meant to make him feel worse, but it does. 

“I know you’re stressed, man,” Dean continues. “I wish I could help when you get like that, but there’s not a whole lot I can do. Just kinda gotta get outta the way.” 

Castiel’s heart thumps painfully and he sets his burger down. 

“It’s that bad?” he asks, very clinical. 

“No, I mean,” Dean clears his throat. “I know I tend to, y’know… aggravate people. Kind of a pastime of mine, I guess. Hard to turn it off.” 

“I know,” Castiel nods and rubs his greasy hands all over his face. Well, that was a smooth move.

“Need a napkin?”

“Yes please.”

Castiel wipes his face and folds up the napkin into itty bitty squares. 

“Still love me?” asks Dean then. 

Castiel lets out an audible snort at that and nods, “Against my better judgment, yeah.” 

Dean socks him on the arm, and so Castiel asks, “Do you still love me?”

Dean rolls his eyes and takes a breath before nodding back. 

So Castiel sips a chunk of Oreo out of his milkshake and presses it against his teeth. 

He smiles, “What about now?” 

“Ooh, yeah baby,” Dean lets out a low whistle. “C’mon and give it to me right here, right now.”

Castiel laughs, and for a few more minutes as they finish up their lunch, things feel good. Things feel right. 

**oo**

Once they get through Denver it’s Castiel’s turn to drive. Thankfully the mountains are very beautiful, and that Dean got them through the drear of Nebraska. 

As expected, Dean takes a short nap until they hit Utah. They’ve been on the road for twelve hours now, but when Castiel tries to pull over for the night, Dean takes charge once more and keeps driving. 

They cycle through tape after tape, CD after CD of Dean’s gut-busting classic rock. They talk, they have a heated discussion about their best plan of action in case of zombie outbreak, Castiel takes yet another nap. 

It’s dark when he wakes this time, and Dean finally stops the car. They’re in a parking lot outside of a motel, nothing to see but the long stretch of highway and the gas station across the street.

Dean asks, “What do you think… are we gonna get murdered tonight?”

“Ugh,” Castiel grunts. “It’s fine. I’ve made peace with my god.” 

Dean chuckles and eventually manages to pry Castiel out of the car. He pulls out his phone to check the time, but instead he’s hit by a barrage of text messages, all from his mother. 

Damned 949 numbers. 

‘ _Your girl isn’t allergic to gluten or anything like that is she?’_

_‘Gabriel informed me he will be arriving with you. Why did you not check with me first?’_

_‘I swear, it’s as if I don’t even exist to you kids.’_

Castiel’s insides go runny. Why is he so nervous? It’s not the first time he’s tried to impress a woman—strike that, an entire _brood_ of people he doesn’t even like. 

“Hey, you okay?” Dean asks as Castiel steadies himself against the truck. 

“I think I am going to be ill,” he manages.  

They make a hasty check-in. The woman at the front desk looks surprised to have any visitors at all, and gives them a room with two queens without even asking. 

The moment they make it into their room, Castiel shuts himself in the bathroom and retches into the toilet. 

Oh yes, that’s much better.

Castiel flushes his vomit down the porcelain bowl and wipes his lips on a wad of toilet paper. He opens the bathroom door just a crack and asks Dean, “Will you hand me my toothbrush and toothpaste?”

Dean, standing with his arms folded over his chest and a worried look on his face, nods and obliges. As Castiel brushes his teeth, Dean steps inside the bathroom and sits down on the edge of the tub. 

They sit in silence for a good long while before Dean finally musters up the guts to speak.

“Man, if you’re not ready, we don’t have to go,” he grabs the back of his neck. “You shouldn’t go until you’re ready.” 

“I’m ready, Dean,” Castiel spits a wad of foam into the sink. “I just—I don’t know what.” 

He rinses his mouth and pats it dry before turning to Dean, explaining, “It’s been so long since I’ve been this anxious. It’s that entire life, all of my family and that place… it was such a terrible time, being there. I tried to get out once and that didn’t work. And then I met you and—Dean, I can’t even begin to tell you how fortunate I feel that we met.”

“Cas,” Dean lets out a pained sigh. 

“I don’t know,” Castiel mutters, hiding his face in his hands.  “I’m a fucking wreck.”

“I know, baby,” Dean reaches out and pulls Castiel toward him by a belt loop. “I’ve got a 40 out in the truck. Wanna get trashed and see if we can still have sex?” 

Castiel sniffs, and despite having just thrown up, nods. 

At the very least, he’ll drink enough to lull himself to sleep.

**oo**

Pain sears through Castiel’s skull as sunlight hits his eyelids. 

He is caught in that painful limbo between ‘still drunk’ and ‘more hungover than ever’, and he can’t quite remember how exactly he got here. He recalls that Dean had more alcohol with him than he’d originally thought, that he and Castiel had locked themselves in the room and started passing the bottle back and forth between the two of them. 

And now every part of him hurts. 

He rolls over and hits a lump of human. 

That’s Dean.

Right? 

Oh, he hopes that’s Dean.

“Dean?”

“No,” Dean grunts back. 

“Okay.” 

Castiel rolls the other way and gets shakily to his feet, doing as best he can without opening his eyes. 

Sunshine is abrasive to the eyes and must be avoided at all costs. 

He bumps his way into the bathroom and shuts the door behind him. 

One breath.

Two.

It smells a little strange, like an odd mix of chemicals one would not use to clean motel bathrooms.

A third breath, and he’s ready to turn on the light and open his eyes. 

The bathroom is a mess, towels strewn everywhere and blue—is that blue?

There is blue goop everywhere: blue stains on the counter, in the sink, in the shower. 

Castiel catches his reflection in the mirror and lets out a yelp. 

His hair…

His hair is  _blue_. 

“Dean,” he calls, but as soon as he opens his mouth he feels whatever poison is left in his body come up. 

He barely makes it in the toilet bowl. His whole body convulses as his stomach empties.

This is going to be a bad hangover, isn't it.

He clutches the bathroom counter and pulls himself to his feet, catching his reflection in the mirror once again. 

He’s pale and sweaty, there are dark circles under his eyes.

And his hair is _blue._

“Dean!” he manages again, and gets nothing but a loud groan in response. 

Fuck.

 _Fuck_. 

“Jesus Christ!” he hears Dean a few moments later. 

There’s some loud fumbling, and then Dean bursting into the bathroom, holding out his hands. 

“My hands,” he looks nauseated by them. “Cas, my fucking hands are—“

He cuts himself off when he sees Castiel, and then straightens out.

Dean’s hands are indeed stained bright blue. 

He clears his throat.

“Well,” he says. “Guess we can close the books on that one. Fuck, I thought I had alcohol poisoning or some shit.”

“You thought your hands were blue because of alcohol poisoning?” Castiel rasps.

“Either that or I finger-banged Smurfette last night,” Dean rolls up his sleeves. The blue goes all the way up his wrists. “And apparently she was a gusher.”

Another wave of nausea hits Castiel and he steadies himself against the counter.

“Not a good time?” asks Dean.

Castiel shakes his head, and then glares pointedly at the man he has chosen to love and share his life with. “Why the hell aren’t you miserable?” he asks.

“I’ve been building up a tolerance to booze since I was fuckin’ thirteen, man,” Dean grabs a washcloth off of the back of the toilet and soaks it under the faucet. He mops up the sweat off of Castiel’s face, and wow, the cold feels nice on his skin. “You’re okay, baby, I got you.”

That sentiment is more comforting than it has any right to be.

Castiel pulls away and reaches up his sleeve to scratch at his arm, but he recoils.

“You okay?” asks Dean.

Castiel rolls up his sleeve and sees, good lord—

“Holy shit,” Dean rolls up his own sleeve. Where there once was a blank space there is a tattoo to match Castiel’s.

Just below the crooks of their elbows there is a heart engulfed in what appear to be angel wings. From what Castiel can make out, the detailing is beautiful, but also he has _blue hair_ and now he has a _tattoo_.

“Ow,” he mutters.

“Goddamn it,” Dean sighs and abruptly exits the bathroom.

“Dean?” Castiel stumbles after him. God, the room is a mess. Dean meets him halfway back to the bathroom with a tube of something labeled “Tattoo Aftercare”. Dean squeezes a dollop onto his hand and rubs it over the tender flesh on Castiel’s arm.

“Un-fuckin’-believable,” Dean goes to rinse his hand before applying some to his own arm.

“You have a bunch of tattoos,” Castiel squints against the too-bright lights of the room.

“I know, I just can’t believe we’re _that fucking couple_ that goes and gets inked up when we’re drunk.”

“That is very unfortunate,” Castiel agrees and massages his temples. “My hair is blue.” 

“Yeah,” Dean nods, and at least he sounds empathetic. “Hey, quick trip to a drugstore, we can get that fixed up before we go.” 

Castiel looks at his reflection once more. Even with his sickening pallor and his greasy face and tired, bloodshot eyes, the blue hair doesn’t look bad. It makes his eyes sort of pop, and it’s so… different. Different from Newport Beach, from the hoity-toity life he’d been brought into, and different from Nebraska, from the monotonous grayscape of flatlands he’s come to call his home. 

“I like it,” he decides. 

Dean smiles, “Me too, gorgeous.” 

Castiel whines at the compliment, because there is no amount of gorgeous he will feel until he’s thoroughly washed himself. 

“You’re welcome to join me,” Castiel comments as he shucks his clothes.    

Not one to deny Castiel, Dean accepts the invitation. They stand together under the weak spray of the motel shower, and though Castiel wants nothing more than to be clean, he can’t muster the strength to do anything more than lean against the tile wall and yawn.

“Here,” Dean pulls him in close and massages the rest of the cheap travel shampoo into Castiel’s hair. He laughs, and Castiel sees large rivers of blue cascading down his body.

“Is it coming out?” he asks, unable to hide the disappointment in his voice.

“Nah, it just turned the bubbles blue,” Dean smiles. “Looks like you got a while before this stuff’s coming out. I think we may’ve bleached your hair, though.”

“Probably,” Castiel rinses his hair, and lets out a petulant whine when Dean rubs the two cent bar of soap into his skin. He’s tired and nauseated, but Dean’s hands always feel good on him.

As soon as they’re both clean, they get dressed in clean clothes (Castiel in one of Dean’s big comfy plaid shirts that he refuses to give back) and straighten up what they can before they hit the road.

Dean offers to drive the whole way today, for which Castiel is eternally grateful. He steals Dean’s aviator shades and curls up against the passenger side door, content to do nothing but space out in preparation for the arduous day ahead.

They fill up at a gas station.

Dean comes back with a grape Gatorade and a box of crackers.

“Dean, I’m going to throw up all of this,” Castiel says very pointedly.

“Then you’re going to do it out the window,” Dean starts up the truck. “Hydrate, fucker. Before I come over there and kick your ass.”

Castiel whines again, but does as he’s told.

Today’s trip is quieter than yesterday’s. That may have something to do with Castiel drifting in and out of sleep, or quite possibly everything to do with his unwillingness to discuss his family at length.

It’s four in the afternoon by the time they reach Venice. Castiel is ready to call it a day; he feels bad for not being more talkative, but Dean understands. Dean doesn’t like being talkative if it’s forced. He just put in his tapes and rocked out the whole drive.

“This is where Gabriel lives?” asks Dean as they pull up outside a little yellow duplex. It’s by no means ritzy or beautiful, but it’s a far cry from the shithole Castiel thought it would be.

They exit the truck and climb the stairs up to Gabriel’s apartment. Castiel’s limbs won’t stop moving, his fingers won’t stop twitching. He knocks on the door and takes a shaky breath.

“You’re three hours late, asswipe!” They hear from what sounds like the back of the apartment. “Not that I mind,” Gabriel continues, shouting, “I get it, anything to avoid the beast, but fuck man. Gimme a little warning next time.”

“Sorry,” Castiel replies.

The door swings open and there stands Gabriel, a lot scruffier than when Castiel last saw him, with a joint dangling from his lips.

A joint that very promptly falls onto the floor when Gabriel’s jaw drops.

“Oh, fuck,” Gabriel laughs. “ _Fuck_ , this is too good.”

“Okay, get it out,” Castiel hurries him along with a wave of his hand.

“You look like a Smurf jizzed all over your hair.”

“We already did a Smurfs joke,” Castiel rolls his eyes.

“Fine,” Gabriel winces at Castiel’s hair. “Did you accidentally eat some of Willy Wonka’s chewing gum?”

“Blueberry, nice.”

“You look like you belong in an anime,” Gabriel says then. “But, like, not a cool one. One with like, tentacle monsters that tentacle-violate everyone’s orifices.”

“What?” Dean laughs. This, thankfully, distracts Gabriel from Castiel’s hair. He turns to Dean and looks him up and down, careful in his assessment. Then he turns back to Castiel.

“Goddamn, _I’d_ stay in Nebraska for that,” he whistles.

“So glad to have your approval,” Castiel slips his hands into his pockets. “We’re ready when you are.”

“Yeah, hang on,” Gabriel picks up the joint and plants it right back between his lips. “You mind if I smoke this on the way?”

“That is nowhere in the realm of legal,” Castiel shakes his head at the same time Dean shrugs and says, “No problem.”

Castiel turns to look at Dean. The least he could do is not make this impending cavalcade of bullshit any more frustrating than it’s already going to be.

“What?” Dean shrugs.

“All right, hold my spliff, Zoolander,” Gabriel hands to joint to Dean. “I gotta grab my bag.”

Castiel takes a long, steadying breath, and out of the corner of his eyes watches as Dean sniffs the joint and makes a face of approval.

“Dean,” Castiel says tiredly.

“What?” Dean demands this time. “You know how hard it is to get good weed like this back home?”

“Don’t encourage him, Dean.”

“I’m not encouraging!” Dean holds up his hands in surrender. “Fuck, man, take a chill pill.”

“I will not take a chill pill,” Castiel spits back. “Of anything— _anything_ —this was the last thing I wanted to do this holiday. And I am including ritual disembowelment in that ‘anything’.”

“Then why did you even come?” Dean’s eyes go big. “I told you we could turn around, I told you we didn’t have to go, and yet here we are, because you said we had to. Where is the had to, Cas? Where’s the gun and who’s pointing it to your head?”

Castiel isn’t a fool—he knows he’s here because he still has some twisted, perverse desire to please his family. Dislike them though he may, he’s never known anything but this constant struggle for approval that he knows he’ll never get. So, like a dog chasing his own tail, around and around he goes.

Dean got out.

Dean broke the chain, severed all ties, cut himself off completely.

But he loves his family, and speaks so highly of them.

Castiel can’t even sever ties with his idiot pothead brother, let alone go into self-imposed Witness Protection.

“You know why,” is all Castiel manages to say.

“Yeah, I do know why,” Dean nods. “And I know you know why, so if you think you’re getting any sympathy out of me for putting yourself into a shitty situation that you knew you didn’t want to be in, you’re barking up the wrong fuckin’ tree, pal.”

“You’re a shithead,” Castiel comes back. Not his finest moment, or even creative, but he speaks the truth.

“Yeah, well,” Dean shrugs. “I’m your shithead, so you gotta deal with it.”

“All right, gents,” Gabriel reappears, bag slung over his shoulder. He pauses at the tension between the two of them and shuts his front door behind him. “Whoa there, boys, you’re in the California sunshine now, what’s with all the ice?”

“Nothing,” Castiel folds his arms as Gabriel locks up. “May we leave now?”

“Only if you smoke this with me on the way there,” Gabriel takes the joint from Dean as they tromp down the stairs. He waves at the silver-haired woman in the window on the lower level. “I’ll catch you later, Kathy, I’m headed out for the holiday. I’d say you and Vic can be as loud as you want now, but my presence has never seemed to faze you before.”

Kathy flips him off, and Gabriel blows her a kiss.

Dean and Castiel both look at him, neither willing to get in the truck before he explains, “Have you ever had to listen to geriatric sex at four in the afternoon when all you wanna do is watch the Food Network in peace? It’s exhausting.”

Dean gags and Castiel thuds his forehead on the passenger side window.

“It never fails to astound me that you and I emerged from the same womb,” he sighs.

“Me neither, kiddo,” Gabriel claps him on the shoulder. “I can’t believe I managed to soak up all the good genes and leave none for you.”

Castiel smacks him on the arm, and Gabriel retaliates by licking his finger and sticking it into Castiel’s ear.

“Hey!”

“Fucker, that’s what you get.”

“Knock it off!” Dean snaps. “Get in the car, both of you, before I bungee cord your asses down in the back.”

It’s another two hours to Newport Beach and the front seat of the truck, though built to accommodate three bodies, is looking smaller and smaller by the minute.

And somehow Castiel ends up in the middle seat.

Gabriel lights up as soon as they’re on the freeway and cracks the window just enough so Dean doesn’t get any smoke, but Castiel is still subjected to pungent, skunky whiffs.

“Can I tempt you?” asks Gabriel, offering Castiel the joint.

Castiel has been high a total of two times in his life. The first time he barely felt anything, but would not shut up about how good his burrito had been (which, while a delicious burrito, was out Castiel’s normal realm of conversation); the second time he’d spent the entire night in his bed because he’d been too afraid to leave.

“That stuff makes me paranoid,” Castiel scoots closer to Dean, though any closer and he may as well be on Dean’s lap.

“Not this shit,” Gabriel shakes his head. “This shit mellows you out. It’s medical grade, I get it from Kathy.”

“The old lady who flipped you off?” Dean laughs.

“We have an understanding,” Gabriel shrugs.

“And what’s that?”

“She gives me weed, I help her around the house on the weekends,” Gabriel explains. “It’s a good system.”

“You would,” Castiel shakes his head and then takes the joint from Gabriel.

“Whoa, Cas,” Dean interjects. “You don’t have to, Gabriel’s just being a dick.”

“Do it,” Gabriel goads. “I triple dog dare you.”

“Everyone just shut up!” Castiel exclaims, nerves raw as he brings the joint up to his lips. He takes a long drag and promptly leans over Gabriel to blow the smoke out of the window.

It tastes about as bad as he remembers.

Gabriel and Castiel pass the joint back and forth until Castiel can’t take anymore, and resolves to spend the rest of the drive huddled up against his brother.

“How you doin’, good-lookin’?” Dean pats his leg.

“I’m great,” Castiel hums, and it’s true.

He _is_ feeling great.

He doesn’t know where all the worries in his head went, but they’re sure not there anymore.

“You know how long it would’ve taken me to get him to smoke a fuckin’ joint with me before he decided to stay out in BFE?” Gabriel ruffles up Castiel’s hair. “Now you’re a compliant little heathen, aren’t you?”

Castiel whines and makes a swat at him, but he misses.

“So, Dean-o,” Gabriel leans his head atop Castiel’s, and Castiel sighs. It’s nice to be with his brother again, pothead or no. “You seem like a fun-loving, sane human being. What made you shack up with Colonel Tight-Ass in the first place?”

“My tight ass, obviously,” Castiel giggles, and Gabriel makes a gagging noise.

The rest of the ride is easy like that. Castiel is almost surprised at how easy it is, actually. Dean and Gabriel seem to get along well enough—though there is an issue when Gabriel starts navigating the radio.

“Not on your life,” Dean slaps Gabriel’s hand away.

“Come on, get some Top 40 up in here,” Gabriel doesn’t actually move to change the station again, opting instead to put all of his time and effort into blending into the seat against his back.

“How about you two stoners just leave the driving to me,” Dean offers, and then mutters under his breath, “Try to fuckin’ change it off Rush… my _ass_.”

Castiel snorts.

When they do get to the gated community that Castiel and Gabriel grew up in, Dean lets out a low whistle.

Gabriel leans over to the guard at the gate and states their business, that their mother is expecting them, since Castiel is too inept at this moment in time to do so. The high is wearing off now, but at least there’s still this calmness in his chest that makes things easier to deal with.

They drive up the road, and with each and every foot of asphalt they drive over Castiel can feel Dean’s entire perception of the situation changing.

“Don’t make that face,” he says.

“Who, me?” Dean asks just as Gabriel directs him to stop.

And there it is.

Hedges perfectly trimmed, grass rich emerald green, stones and steely blue side paneling all poured together in one hideous nightmare.

With everything he knows of now, Castiel has trouble believing he once called this place home.

“This shit’s insane,” Dean marvels as he unbinds their bags from the truck bed.

“I know,” Castiel nods.

“This is… money.”

“Again, I know,” Castiel sighs as he trudges up the walkway. It’s too late to turn back now.

“Like, mafia money,” Dean drops his voice to a whisper, “Dude, is your family part of the mafia?”

“What mafia would we belong to?” Castiel gestures to both him and Gabriel.

“A very, very handsome one,” Gabriel returns in some accent that Castiel can’t place right now, but makes Dean laugh.

Gabriel knocks on the front door.

Mother is just as Castiel remembers—prim and properly dressed, not a stroke of makeup nor a single hair out of place.

The smile on her face soon fades into one of shock as she lays eyes on her youngest child.

“Castiel!” she exclaims. “What on earth did you do to your hair?!”

“I dyed it,” Castiel replies truthfully. “May we come in?”

Gabriel starts coughing beside Castiel, obviously as shocked at this as their mother is. She steps aside after a moment, however, and extends a welcoming arm into her home.

The home for which Castiel no longer feels any warmth.

He stands closer to Dean.

“And where is the young lady you said you would be bringing?” asks mother, and Castiel folds his arms.

Okay, here it goes.

“Mother, this is Dean,” he introduces. “He’s the one I live with.”

“Dean Winchester, ma’am,” Dean extends a friendly hand, but mother looks… puzzled.

And then she realizes, “And here I thought you were bringing a girl. Naomi Novak, very nice to meet you. Castiel, you should have told me you were bringing your friend, I would’ve had Rosie set up the guest room downstairs.”

Castiel’s jaw drops.

Does she—she really doesn’t get it, does she?

“Mom, this is—”

“Well, we’ll just have to make it work, won’t we?” mother tucks her bangs behind her ear and straightens her spine. “Dean, through here with me. Please forgive the pigsty.”

Dean’s eyes bug out as he looks to Castiel and Gabriel for a last lifeline as their mother leads him through the spotless entryway and back to the guest room.

“Ho-ly shit,” Gabriel lets out a laugh. “My god, say what you want about the WASPs, but their uncanny ability to see only what they want to see is unmatched by any other creature on the planet.”

“I have to tell her,” Castiel shakes his head. “Right? I’m twenty-four, I’m an adult, I pay bills.”

“You work at a gay bar in the middle of nowhere,” Gabriel chimes in.

“I have to tell her,” Castiel sighs.

“Or, it’s just two nights, and you can get out of here unscathed,” Gabriel points out. “Think about it: if you tell her, it’s just going to turn into a thing. If you don’t, you get to live through the holiday and then get the hell out of dodge with your head intact.”

“That’s a good point,” Castiel concedes and then fists his hands in his hair. “What the hell am I supposed to do?”

“Well, kick the swearing, for one,” Gabriel begins. “You know she hates that. And second, do whatever you want. I’m putting my stuff down and preparing myself for the rough day ahead.”

“You’re gonna jerk off and smoke some more weed?” Castiel raises an eyebrow.

“Well,” Gabriel shifts. “When you say it like _that_ it sounds way less exotic.”

Gabriel starts up the steps, and it takes Castiel until he gets to the landing to realize, “That didn’t sound exotic at all to begin with!”

Mother returns to see only one of her sons standing where she’d left them. She clucks her tongue and lets out a sigh.

“That hair,” she shakes her head. “Honestly, I don’t know why you insist on upsetting me at every turn.”

“I didn’t do it to upset you,” Castiel believes, at least enough to make it sound convincing. He runs his fingers through his hair, “I did it because I like it.”

And he does like it.  Every time he catches a reflection of himself, he smiles. He finds some way to touch it, some way to remind himself that, yes, it’s real. It makes him look different, so different from the eighteen year old boy who left here so long ago.

“And that Dean,” she continues.

“What’s wrong with Dean?” an edge creeps into Castiel’s voice that makes the back of his neck prickle with adrenaline.

“Nice enough,” she throws her hands up. “You’d think he’d keep himself clean with that handsome face, but he’s dressed in rags and did you see his hands? There’s dirt under those nails, who knows how long it’s been there.”

Castiel wants to tell her to go fuck herself, to tell her that she’s not allowed to speak about Dean that way.

But the way her hardened eyes fall on him has him reverting back to old habits. He swallows his reply and it lands like hot acid in his gut. And rather than let on, he simply nods his head and totes his bag upstairs and into his and Gabriel’s old room.

It’s sort of the same as it was. The bed sheets are different, and Gabriel’s old posters have all been taken down. Everything is where it was when he last saw it, though.

Gabriel is already on his old bed, curled against the wall closest to them, looking to be sound asleep already.

That sounds like a capital idea.

Castiel flops down on his own bed, the one against the far wall, and pulls out his phone.

There’s a text from Dean, including a picture attachment.

It’s him, a _selfie_ of him and his sheer amazement, and with a caption, “MY BATHTUB IS A GODDAMNED SWIMMING POOL”

And then another text comes in, “ALSO YOUR MOM DOESN’T REALIZE THAT WERE A COUPLE OF BUTTFUCKING QUEERS DOES SHE”

Castiel snorts and texts back, “No, she does not.”

Another picture in return, this one of the bed in the guest room, captioned with, “MAYBE SHE WILL AFTER I FUCK YOU INTO THE BIGGEST MATTRESS I HAVE EVER SEEN”

A laugh barks out of Castiel’s chest at that, prompting a very adamant admonishment from his brother, “There’s no fun allowed here.”

Castiel, beside himself with everything that’s happened over the last few days, lets his eyes slip shut as a broad grin stretches over his face.

**oo**

Dinner is a standard Novak affair, served up promptly at seven by Rosie.

Castiel is entirely uncomfortable that mother still employs a woman to cook and clean for only her and dad. He actually finds most things about this lifestyle disturbing, and as it turns out, so does Gabriel.

Gabriel insists that they smoke again before they go downstairs. He says he has another type of weed with him that doesn’t give as much of a high as the stuff they smoked on the way here, and though skeptical at first, Castiel can’t deny that it makes him feel immeasurably better.

Calmer. 

Even if they do have to smoke in the bathroom, the two of them crunched up on opposite ends of the bathtub with a towel rolled up under the door.

Once downstairs, Castiel goes to check on Dean before anything else, only to find that he’s lounging back on his bed, flipping through channels on the flat screen mounted up on the wall.

“Enjoying yourself?” Castiel grins, leaning against the doorjamb. Dean sits up on his knees and gestures at the TV.

“This is fuckin’ amazing, are you shitting me?” his eyes are big and full of wonder that until recently Castiel has only noticed when Dean sees a particularly nice old car drive by. “I’ve never had anything but basic cable before, man. Did you see this? There’s a whole goddamned channel for old Nickelodeon shows.”

Castiel’s face must be split wide open in a smile, because Dean’s shoulders sag as he asks, “What?”

“You’re the most adorable person on the planet,” Castiel replies, still smiling. He steps forward then and kisses the shell-shocked look right off of Dean’s lips.

“Adorable?” Dean lets out a laugh against Castiel’s mouth. “How high are you?”

Okay, so ‘adorable’ isn’t exactly at the forefront of anyone’s mind when it comes to Dean, whose edges are still a little rough, whose rugged handsomeness sends men and women panting with desire, who has a mouth like a sailor when he isn’t abiding by that stoic silent-type demeanor.

But Dean _is_ adorable, because he gets excited about cartoons, and makes faces at babies and little kids when they’re in line at the grocery store, and when he gets upset he curls up against Castiel and hangs onto him as though his life depends on it.

Dean Winchester is many things, and ‘adorable’ just happens to be one of them.

“Hey kids,” Gabriel knocks on the open door, jarring Castiel out of where he’s managed to become trapped under Dean on the bed.

“What, Gabe?” Castiel jars out of his Dean-induced trance.

“Oh, just noticed you boys were making out hardcore with the door open,” Gabriel shrugs, “Thought I’d pop in and say ‘hi’ and remind you that our gene donors are awaiting our arrival at the dinner table.”

And so they are.

Gabriel and Cas must smell like smoke—they have to. But if mom and dad notice they don’t mention it. Castiel and Gabriel sit very calmly beside each other, while Dean whistles at the spread. There’s salmon, roasted vegetables, a green salad, and a bowl of rice pilaf that smells out of this world delicious.

“Boys,” dad greets, not looking up from an email on his phone. “Good to see you, as always.”

Castiel hums and Gabriel snorts, because mother rolls her eyes and says, “Will you please look at what your son has done to himself?”

Dad looks up from his phone and settles his eyes on Castiel.

“Good lord, son,” he adjusts his glasses on his nose. “What is wrong with you?”

“So much,” Castiel sighs and grabs the bowl of rice, piling a mound high on his plate.

Dad then looks at Dean and asks, “Who are you? Where’s the girl you were bringing, Castiel?”

“This is Castiel’s roommate, Dean,” mother introduces him with a wave of her hand. “I’m starting to think Castiel decided to deceive us on purpose. He never corrected me, not once.”

“No place else to go?” dad asks Dean as he spreads his napkin out over his lap.

Dean forks a piece of salmon onto his plate and shifts, “Uh, not necessarily. Usually I have Thanksgiving dinner with El—my mom and sister. Cas asked me if I’d come with him this year, though.”

Dean passes the salmon to Castiel across the table and clears his throat.

“You pulled this poor boy away from his family?” asks mother, and Castiel rolls his eyes. “Don’t you give me that attitude. Honestly, what has gotten into you?”

“Dick,” Gabriel mutters under his breath, and Castiel punches his thigh under the table.

“It was voluntary, Mrs. Novak,” Dean chimes in and then shoots Castiel a quick ‘what the fuck’ look before turning back to his food.

Dinner passes with the same level of awkwardness, quite possibly more. Dean isn’t one to turn down free food, but Castiel knows that he’d much rather be shoving a cheeseburger into his face. Gabriel tells a few stories about customers at the grocery store bakery where he works, while Castiel simply shrugs when asked about work.

“And what do you do, Dean?” asks dad. “Do you and Castiel know each other from school?”

“Uh, no,” Dean coughs.

“Dean didn’t go to college,” Castiel says very frankly. “He’s got his GED.”

“Thanks, Cas,” Dean returns, appearing to be entirely uncomfortable now.

“So, what do you do?” asks mother.

“I’m a bartender,” Dean struggles to keep his eyes off of his plate. “Before that I worked at an auto body shop.”

“Dean rebuilt his entire truck from scratch, almost,” Castiel interjects. “He can fix almost anything.”

“Cleans out your sewage pipes on the reg, too,” Gabriel comments lightly, and Castiel hits him again.

“Well,” mother clears her throat. “The world needs people who know that kind of thing too.”

Dean’s knuckles go white around his fork, and Castiel’s stomach goes sour, even with his high.

“I wait tables,” he says then. “And I almost got my degree.”

“Almost,” dad points out. “Lucifer is a junior partner at his law firm, Michael is a sergeant within his police department; Gabriel works behind the counter at some chain grocery store and you wait tables.  What’s the pattern here?”

“You have to be a massive dick to get anywhere in this world,” Gabriel offers very seriously, and Dean snorts as Castiel lets out a loud cough. Mother admonishes him, and after that the rest of dinner is silent.

Castiel busses the table, more a habit now than an actual a desire to do anything for his parents. Dean follows closely behind him, carrying in both his plate and the bowl of rice pilaf.

“Dude, what the _fuck_ ,” Dean demands in this hushed tone that sends the bad kind of chill up Castiel’s spine. “What the hell was all of that?”

“I’m so, so sorry,” Castiel turns to him and checks to make sure that nobody is coming, that nobody can see them before he cups Dean’s face in his hands and presses a chaste kiss to his lips.

“Your parents are dicks,” Dean mutters when he pulls back.

“I know,” Castiel nods.

“Thanks for not being a dick,” Dean clears his throat. “Um, are you cool if I just… go in my room?”

“Are you all right?” Castiel cocks his head, another chill running through him.

“I just gotta be… by myself,” Dean explains.

“Okay,” Castiel nods. “Let me know if you need anything.”

Dean nods back and disappears from there into the guest room.

**oo**

Sleeping through the night proves to be as difficult for Castiel as it was when he was a kid. He tosses and turns, realizing that this is now the third night in a row that his sleep has been disrupted. It’s already an odd enough schedule with working well into the early hours of the morning, but it’s easy to fall asleep next to Dean.

He thinks he may have forgotten how to sleep without him.

Dean did say that he needed his space, but who knows, maybe he’ll just let Castiel sleep beside him anyway. Castiel can’t handle another sleepless night, he just can’t.

Castiel rolls out of bed and tiptoes downstairs, carefully bypassing his parents’ bedroom so as not to arouse suspicion. He knocks softly on Dean’s door and opens it just a crack.

Dean lays out flat on top of the duvet, TV light flickering over his face. He casts a look over to Castiel and murmurs, “Hey.”

“Hey,” Castiel whispers back, feeling nothing short of childish when he asks, “May I come sleep with you?”

“Please,” Dean extends an arm. “I’m fuckin’ dying in here by myself.”

Relief washes over Castiel and he closes the door behind him. The bed is cold save for the parts surrounding Dean, and Castiel immediately huddles up under his arm.

He notices then that Dean is not in the center of the bed, but on the side corresponding to the one he occupies on their bed at home.

“What are you watching?” asks Castiel.

“Infomercial for the Magic Bullet,” Dean replies. “Fuckin’ ridiculous.”

“Are you okay?” Castiel looks up at him then. “I know dinner was rough. I apologize for exacerbating it.”

Dean shifts under him and mutters, “I don’t wanna talk about it, man.”

Castiel keeps his breathing even, because usually when Dean doesn’t want to talk about something, that leads to an outburst of astronomical proportions. Dean will shut off and run away, and since he’s trapped in foreign territory Castiel doesn’t want to do that to him.

Dean draws his fingers over Castiel’s arm, up his neck. He sighs into it, pressing his face into Dean’s chest and holding him close.

“I love you,” he says.

“Yeah, you too,” Dean’s grip tightens on his shoulder. Castiel cranes his neck so they can meet halfway in an awkward kiss.

Dean rolls them so that Castiel is pressed into the comforter. This bed is high quality, much nicer than the mattress they salvaged nearly a year ago. Castiel is torn between wanting to fall asleep tangled up in this man and these sheets, and wanting to tear up this bed and take it for all it’s worth.

Their lazy make-out develops into some lazy groping. Dean’s hands, as usual, start to wander first. He brushes over Castiel’s chest, tickles his large hands down Castiel’s side and up under his shirt. The feeling of skin on skin makes Castiel’s toes curl and a smile pull at his cheeks.

Dean smiles back against him.

“I really dig the hair,” Dean decides, running his fingers through it.

“Good, because I’m keeping it,” Castiel stretches languidly below him.

“How’s your arm doing?” Dean asks then.

“Fine,” Castiel yawns, and lets out a laugh when Dean leans down and nips his neck. Castiel can feel himself getting hard in his pajamas, and with a quick grope he can feel that Dean is too.

“Pretty fresh knowing your parents are upstairs,” Dean then grinds down against Castiel on purpose.

“I don’t care,” Castiel rolls back up against him. He snags Dean’s lower lip with his teeth, just barely scraping before he soothes it over with a kiss.

“Fuck, you’re feisty tonight,” Dean remarks, sounding not unlike all the breath has been stolen out of his chest. Castiel swells at the sound and slips his hands under the elastic band of Dean’s pajamas, grabbing tight, fleshy handfuls of his butt.

It’s a good butt.

A very nice butt.

Any other night Castiel would want to flip Dean onto his stomach and kiss it and bite it and spread it open and eat it out like nobody’s business, but tonight he needs something else.

“Did you pack lube?” he asks, breathless.

“Duh,” Dean laughs back and hovers his lips millimeters above Castiel’s. “Why, wanna use it?”

A growl bubbles up from Castiel’s chest and he murmurs, “I want you to fuck me.”

Dean lets out this unholy whine at that, so Castiel continues, “You can’t just say you want to fuck me into a mattress and rescind the offer. That’s not polite.”

“You’re such a shithead,” Dean returns, warm affection pouring out of him like honey. He leaps off the bed and rummages through his bag, tossing their half-used bottle of lube and a condom back onto the bed.

“Condom?” asks Castiel.

“Yeah,” Dean bounces back on the bed, hands resting on Castiel’s hips. “I don’t wanna get come stains on these sheets. I probably can’t even count as high as the thread count on these things.”

“What about me?” Castiel props himself up on his elbows as Dean pulls off his pants and underwear in one grand gesture. The chill of the room hits Castiel’s erection and he hisses.

Dean grins.

“I said _I_ don’t want to get come stains on the sheets,” he bends and kisses the tip of Castiel’s erection. “I don’t care what you do.”

“Fucker,” Castiel sighs, no venom behind the words at all as he leans back and lets Dean pay attention to his cock.

It could be that he’s dead tired, on the brink of hallucination, but he’s pretty sure Dean’s mouth is a better high than anything he could ever get from any drug.

He faintly hears the crack of the cap on the lube, and then a slippery digit press against his entrance. Dean works one finger in, and then a second, stroking over his prostate in short teases.

Castiel loses his breath too soon. He fists the covers and writhes under the careful, earnest bobs of Dean’s head.

He even warns Dean that he’s going to come if he keeps going, but that doesn’t stop him.

Well, it does, but only for a moment, so he can pull off Castiel’s cock and look up at him with lust-darkened eyes and this devilishly handsome smile and rasp, “Fuck my mouth, baby.”

He drags his swollen lower lip through the slick of spit and precome on the purpling head of Castiel’s erection before closing his mouth over it. His fingers punch into Castiel’s prostate again, sending his hips rocking forward and up into Dean’s face.

He holds Dean’s head steady as he rolls up into that silky, wet heat. Castiel can feel the back of Dean’s throat around him, can hear the sounds of him trying to breathe as he slips another finger inside him.

Castiel knows he’s being loud, he can hear himself being way too loud, but he does not care. In this moment, this is all that there is.

He comes down Dean’s throat with a loud groan, which turns into a series of chest wracking pants as he winds back down.

“There,” Dean’s voice is all froggy from the friction in his throat. “Now you don’t have to worry about making a mess.”

“Yeah, but you swallowed my sperm, so now we have to worry about you getting pregnant,” Castiel replies so frankly that Dean almost doesn’t catch that he’s kidding.

“You’re so fuckin’ lucky I love you,” Dean shakes his head and shucks his pants. As he fits himself with the condom and lubes up, Castiel rolls onto his stomach and points his ass up.

“You want it like this?” Dean’s hands trail over his back, down his crack and between his cheeks.

“Hard as you can go,” Castiel nods.

He needs to be as far out of this house as he possibly can be, fucked beyond the point of recognizing his own name.

He doesn’t hold back the groans of pleasure as Dean pushes into him. He just fists the sheets and pushes back.

Dean wastes no time in setting up a brutal pace, either. It’s good, though, it’s what Castiel asked for. He doesn’t want to feel anything except Dean’s cock pistoning inside him and the bed frame knocking into the wall.

He tries to get up on all fours, but Dean presses him back down, pinning him to the bed by a forearm across his shoulder blades.

With limited movement, all Castiel can do is cry out when Dean hits a good spot and near hyperventilate into the duvet.

A guttural noise erupts out of Dean and he wraps his arm around Castiel’s neck, pressing their bodies flush as he slams out his orgasm. Castiel can feel Dean sucking a hickey into his neck, but the fucking has done its job, and right now he sees no problems with having a giant lovebite visible on his neck.

Dean rolls off of Castiel and disposes of the condom in the bathroom trashcan while Castiel turns back over and slips his pajamas back on. He’s all sticky with sweat, he feels nice and raw and fucked, limbs flopping uncooperatively everywhere. He gives up on whatever it is that he’s trying to do and stretches out wide on the bed.

A happy sigh escapes his lips and he reaches his hands up above his head.  

“You okay?” Dean laughs as he crawls back up beside him.

“Yeah,” Castiel hums. “Can we sleep now?”

“God yeah, I’m fuckin’ beat,” Dean yawns and reaches out for Castiel’s hand. He links their fingers together and tries to pull Castiel in, but Castiel whines.

“No, I’m too hot,” he mutters. “Stay on your side.”

“Killjoy,” Dean shoots back.

“Love you,” Castiel rolls onto his side, facing away from Dean.

“Yeah, yeah,” Dean grumbles.

**oo**

Castiel wakes up to pee, and then realizes that he’s in his parents’ house, in the guest bedroom with his boyfriend, with a massive hickey on his neck and the worst case of sex hair he’s had in recent memory. He finishes using the bathroom and then comes back out to Dean, pressing a hand into his shoulder to wake him.

“What,” Dean moans, hugging his pillow closer to his chest.

“I’m going back upstairs,” Castiel whispers.

Dean grunts in response and flops Castiel’s pillow over his head.

Castiel tiptoes out of the guest room and only prays he can make it up the stairs before anybody sees him, but of course, that’s too much to ask.

Gabriel sits at the island in the kitchen, legs kicked up on the extra chair beside him with that viciously smug smirk on his face.

“Hey kiddo,” he greets. “Sleep much?”

Castiel’s shoulders sag and he trudges into the kitchen. Thankfully it’s just Gabriel and a pot of coffee in there, and Castiel resolves to pour himself the biggest cup of coffee possible.

“Thank god you didn’t have a sex life when we were actually living here,” Gabriel whistles. “You woke up the whole goddamned block, I think.”

“Ugh,” Castiel leans his elbows on the island counter, hiding his face in his hands. “Are mom and dad up?”

“Yep.”

“And did they—”

“Oh yeah,” Gabriel nods.

“Shit,” Castiel sighs just as his parents come in from what must have been an early morning jog. They both stop at the sight of him, exchanging tepid, disapproving looks before mother turns to him and folds her arms.

“So you’ve just decided you’re going to make a fool of me at every opportunity?” she asks.

Castiel raises an eyebrow, and then Gabriel voices, “Hold up now, how is this about you?”

“Did you know about this?” mother asks of Gabriel, turning her imploring steely gaze upon him.

“That Castiel and Dean have been buggering the fuck out of each other for the last two years?” Gabriel asks, and Castiel thinks that his face may be permanently red after this. “Yeah, I knew.”

“And you never thought to mention it?” Mother braces her hands on her skinny hips.

“Not my thing to mention,” Gabriel shrugs.

“You’ve been,” Dad holds up a hand, turning back to Castiel now. “You’ve been _with_ that kid for two years?”

Castiel crosses his arms over his chest and nods. He feels naked.

“Since when are you even a homosexual!” mother throws up her hands. “For the love of God, what about April? You two were together for the longest time.”

“Perhaps when I was in high school, yes, we were together for a long time,” Castiel replies carefully. “And who said I was homosexual? People can like both men and women and anything in between just as equally as one can love another.”

“It’s called pansexuality,” Gabriel chimes in.

“Oh, Jesus,” dad rolls his eyes as mother implores, “Don’t turn this into one of those arguments, I swear to god Castiel.”

“One of what arguments?” Castiel’s eyebrows screw up, rage quelled only by his genuine confusion.

“Where we have to bow down to whatever it is you decided to call yourself,” mother throws her keys down on the counter and grabs a carton of orange juice out of the fridge.

“Are you serious?” Gabriel sits up then, all traces of laughter gone from his face. “And you’re wondering why Cas didn’t tell you guys anything?”

“I just don’t understand why you had to bring him,” mother shrugs. “I don’t understand why you insist on making things more difficult than they have to be, and I certainly don’t understand why you people have to make up different names for homosexual.”

“Thank you,” dad gestures. “Pansexual… what’s next, skillet-sexual?”

Castiel puts his face in his hands, because this is it.

This is his aneurism.

“Pan,” he declares loudly. “As in the Greek root meaning _all_. Pandemonium, Pan-American, panacea, _pansexual_. All. Place of all demons, all of the Americas, cure-all, sexual attraction to all, regardless of sex or gender. It has nothing to do with cooking or skillets, that is absurd.”

“Good lord,” mother shakes her head as dad throws up his hands. “Do you hear yourself when you speak, Castiel? Because whatever that was that just came out of your mouth was monstrously absurd.”

Castiel is just about to yell back when the guest room door opens and Dean shuffles out, scratching the back of his head and looking to be completely lost.

“Someone make coffee?” he asks, coming to stand beside Castiel. Castiel loops his arm around Dean’s neck and pulls him in close.

“Dean is my boyfriend,” he says.

“s’up,” Dean raises a tired hand.

“Does that somehow make us unwelcome in your home?” Castiel challenges. Mom and dad look at each other, appearing to have some sort of telepathic conversation with one another.

Mother finally concedes and shakes her head, “Of course not.”

Oh.

Well.

That was not the reaction he’d expected.

“Just keep it to yourselves,” dad grunts. “We’ve got kids coming here today, they don’t need to see any of that.”

“Any of what?” Dean asks, but Castiel grabs him by the face and presses their lips together in a firm, defiant kiss. He pulls back and looks Dean in his dazed, sleepy green eyes.

“Any of that,” he replies. “For the sake of the children, we can’t engage in any perverted activities.”

“We’re just trying to have a nice family dinner for the holiday,” dad rolls his eyes. “We’re not hosting a gay pride parade just because the two of you are here.”

“I don’t think they’re asking you to,” Gabriel chimes in.

“Can you handle not being a disgusting pervert for one night?” asks Castiel, leaning his forehead against Dean’s.

“Mm, that’s a tall order,” Dean winces back. “I’ll manage, though.”

“Castiel, do not make a spectacle,” mother warns. “We’re asking you to be courteous.”

Castiel casts a look back at her and dad and shrugs, “That’s fine. Honey, did you pack something other than your assless chaps?”

Gabriel snorts into his coffee as their parents make indignant noises and officially give up on getting their point across.

**oo**

Lucifer and his family arrive first. Castiel and Dean sit out in the bed of the truck, legs tangled up together, each of them looking at their phones, kicking occasionally at one another and sharing something they’ve found or seen, when Lucifer’s flashy Lexus pulls up.

“Which one is this?” asks Dean as Lucifer spots them through his windshield.

“Lucifer,” Castiel sighs. “His wife’s name is Lilith, and his baby girl is Bea.”

“Bea?” Dean lets out a laugh and then drops his voice an octave. “Like Bea Arthur?”

Castiel smacks him on the leg and stands up in the truck as Lucifer gets out of the car.

“Well, well,” he greets. “The wayward dropout. Fancy seeing you here.”

Castiel hops down and extends a hand to shake. Lucifer takes it, but rather than shake back, he pulls Castiel into a bone-crushing hug.

“How’ve you been, kid?”

“What are you doing?” Castiel asks.

“It’s a hug, smartass,” Lucifer claps him on the back and pulls away. “Nice hair.”

“Thanks,” Castiel mutters back.

“And nice hickey,” Lucifer grins, an echo of the mirth on Gabriel’s face this morning. He looks behind Castiel at Dean, who now sits on the edge of the truck bed, feet planted firmly on the road below.

“He yours?” asks Lucifer.

“You could put it that way, I suppose,” Castiel nods.

Lucifer lets out a whistle and claps him on the arm, “Nice.”

He pushes past Castiel and extends a hand to Dean, “Lucifer Novak, pleasure to meet you.”

“Dean Winchester,” Dean looks about as puzzled as Castiel feels when Lilith comes forward and gives Castiel a hug.

“Good to see you again,” she hums.

Castiel doesn’t know just what the hell is going on here, but this is the happiest anybody has ever been to see him. Lilith opens up the back door then and unbuckles a squirmy tow-headed little girl.

“Bea, do you remember your uncle Cas?” asks Lilith. Bea shakes her head, and Castiel gets a sinking pit in his chest. He didn’t expect her to remember him, she’s only three after all, but he realizes just then how much he’s missed.

“Can you say ‘uncle Cas’?”

“Untul Tass,” Bea repeats, and Lilith sets her down on the sidewalk.

“She has trouble with her hard ‘k’ sounds,” she says. Lucifer scoops Bea up in his arms and perches her on one of his hips as Lilith moves to the other side of the car and unbuckles another car seat.

Another tow-head, a little boy half asleep with his thumb in his mouth.  

That’s his nephew Dante.

He’s been away for so long that his family has actually gained another kid.

Dean and Castiel follow Lucifer into the house. Dad is the first to greet them, as usual. He gives Lucifer a firm handshake and then takes baby Dante into his arms. He looks like he’s never seen a more impressive child.

Sure, Dante is cute, but he’s snotty and not housebroken just like every other baby on the planet. They head into the kitchen when mother emerges, hands freshly washed so she can pinch cheeks and give kisses.

“Man, what is the deal with your dad?” asks Dean as they sit down at the island. Gabriel is peeling potatoes like a fiend over the sink. “That’s the most personable I’ve seen him all day.”

“Lucifer here?” Gabriel asks without looking up from his task.

“He is,” Castiel nods. “Dad intercepted the baby the second he saw him.”

“Well, you know the rule,” Gabriel peels the potatoes faster. “If it came from Lucifer it’s golden. The best part about it? Get them in a room by themselves talking about _anything_ and you have to have a goddamned ambulance on standby.” 

Dean huffs, “I know how that goes.”

“When we were little they got in this big fight and Lucifer took off,” Gabriel says. “Two weeks, he was gone. They filed a missing persons report and everything, and when he got back he was just like, ‘hey, didn’t even think you’d realize I was gone’.”

“’the hell did they argue about?” Dean asks.

“I don’t even know anymore,” Castiel shakes his head.

“Something stupid,” Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Something Lucifer probably didn’t need to backtalk about, and that dad didn’t need to get as pissed about as he did. But there’s nothing that fucker can’t do that doesn’t make dad proud, so there you go.”

“Yeah, my old man’s like that with my brother,” Dean nods, eyes trained on his hands. Castiel glances over at him, not wanting to call attention to the mention of his family and startle him back into silence. “Sammy was only a kid when I left, but they fought about everything even then. And it was just the three of us, so I got caught in the middle a lot.”

“You got out, though,” Gabriel shrugs.

“Yeah, but you can’t leave two people who fight all the time alone,” Dean digs his fingernails into his palm. “That’s how they end up killing each other.”

“It’s not your responsibility to be anybody’s middle ground, Dean,” says Castiel, and he reaches over to rub the back of Dean’s neck.

Dean clears his throat and makes a grab for Castiel’s hand. He holds it steady, and keeps himself silent.

“Nice little lovefest in here,” Lucifer remarks as he strolls into the kitchen, Bea still on his hip. He sets down a Marie Calendar’s bag on the counter. “Brought some pie.”

Dean’s head perks up.

“I’m making pie,” Gabriel tosses his kitchen rag over his shoulder.

Lucifer rolls his eyes, “Mom said we needed pie, so I brought pie.”

 “I’m a goddamned fucking baker,” Gabriel snaps, “Why would she even think we needed pie?”

“I don’t know,” Lucifer enunciates, adjusting Bea so that he can pull a mug out of the cabinets and pour himself a cup of coffee. “Make your pie, we don’t have to eat this one.”

“What kind is it?” Dean asks, peeking inside the bag.

“Pumpkin and apple,” Lucifer replies.  

“Tits,” Dean pulls the bag toward him. “Any of you know where they keep the forks in this godforsaken hell-hole?”

Gabriel pulls a fork out of a drawer by the fridge and Dean opens up the pumpkin pie. He sticks his fork right into the middle and shoves a bite into his mouth. The relief on Dean’s face transfers in equal amounts to Castiel’s heart, and he feels himself relax just slightly.

“I like him,” Lucifer decides then. “Good catch, little brother.”

“Thank god,” Gabriel rolls his eyes. “Saint Lucifer approves. We can all get on with our lives.”

Lucifer raises an eyebrow and then his face lights up, as though he’s just remembered, “Gabe, I forgot that I brought you something.” He sets his coffee down and pats around his pockets, digs inside his coat, and finally pulls out—his middle finger.

“Oh, nice one, Lucy,” Gabriel nods.

“Made it just for you,” Lucifer winks. “From Russia with love, my friend. _Dasvidaniya.”_

“In front of the child, too,” Gabriel throws up a gesture of approval. “Classy.”

Lucifer mimes his hand blowing up, complete with sound effects, before he returns to his coffee.

It’s not long after mother returns to the kitchen with Lilith that Dean and Castiel vacate. They choose instead to sit in the living room with dad and Dante, so they can watch some sports reporting nonsense that Dean actually happens to be somewhat interested in.

Castiel has never been big on sports, but he knows Dean follows them at least a little bit. He and dad actually hold a whole conversation about it, which dad chooses to end with a very impressed, “You sure you’re gay?”

Dean, thankfully, bites back his undoubtedly snide retort and is rewarded by dad handing off the baby when he stands to use the restroom.

“Hey,” Dean smiles at Dante.

Lucifer approaches with Bea then and sits her down beside Castiel.

“Maybe uncle Cas will color with you,” he says as he hoists the diaper bag up from the floor and rummages through it. He pulls out a well-loved 64-pack of crayons and a stack of coloring books that are very definitely princess-themed. He sets them in Castiel’s lap and kisses the top of his daughter’s hair, “Because daddy has to take a long walk around the block so he doesn’t kill Nammy.”

Bea stares up at Castiel expectantly as Lucifer heads out the front door, and Castiel clears his throat.

“Well, would you like Ariel, Belle, or Cinderella?”

Bea points to Cinderella, and Castiel nods, “Good, I’m more of a Belle man myself.”

Dean snorts beside him and Castiel nudges him.

It’s kind of nice, though, just being with the kids while everyone else busies themselves elsewhere. Dean spends the better part of the calm before the storm making faces at Dante, bouncing him in his lap and making all sorts of weird noises.

It’s making his brain edge on a topic he does not want to discuss, and in fact told himself that he would not discuss until he was at least thirty. Then again, he didn’t think he would ever have to until recently.

“Do you,” he begins, and damn now he’s really done it. He takes a breath and swallows back his nerves, “Dean, do you want kids?”

Dean stiffens beside him and he turns Dante around so that he too is facing the television.

“I don’t know,” he shrugs, pointedly not looking at Castiel. “Never really thought it was a possibility.”

“Why not?” Castiel frowns. “You could’ve just as easily fallen in love with a woman and had children with her. You were probably more likely to, even, knowing you. Who knows, you still might.”

“Shut up,” Dean shoves him with his shoulder. “It’s not the sex it’s more of a… didn’t think anyone would ever want to have ‘em with me.”

That one hits Castiel right in the heart. He stops coloring and looks over at Dean, whose eyes stare fixed ahead and face falls with sobriety. Without even thinking, Castiel leans over and brings him into a kiss.

“What’s that for?” Dean asks, brows furrowed slightly together.

“If I could, I would have your babies,” Castiel strokes the backs of his fingers through Dean’s sideburns. “And anyone who wouldn’t is an idiot.”

The notion only warms and comforts Dean for the short amount of time that follows before Michael and his family arrive.

Andrew, Paul, and Peter pound through the entryway before Michael or Eve can even get a chance to announce their arrival. Andrew is six, tall already, with a short-cropped soldier’s haircut to match that of his two little brothers. Paul is four now, and Peter is two, though Peter looks like Paul’s exact double.

Castiel stands to hug them, but they stop at the sight of him. Even Michael and Eve, when they finally come in behind them, seem to be speechless. Castiel takes the moment to confirm, “Yes, I have blue hair. We will not be discussing it further.”

The boys are unfazed by this and immediately take off for the back yard so they can play. Michael, however, seems to think it’s his place to say, “The job market can’t be fun with a hairdo like that.”

Michael is eleven years older than Castiel. Even at their closest, they weren’t that close. And by the time Castiel was really old enough to know what was going on, Michael had gone off to college. If anything, Michael was dad when dad couldn’t be dad. Michael got him and Gabriel from school, helped them with their homework, and made sure they knew how to defend themselves if the going got tough.

He doesn’t take too well to Dean, either. Thankfully his brothers aren’t as thick-skulled as their parents, and Michael caught on even more quickly than Lucifer.

“Castiel, this is a family affair,” he admonishes, more disappointed than anything as he pulls Castiel aside. “Don’t you understand how inappropriate it is to have him here?”

“I’m beginning to, yes,” Castiel frowns. “Perhaps it was foolish to believe my family would treat someone I love with a bit of human decency.”

“Oh don’t turn it into this,” Michael rolls his eyes. “Did it ever occur to you that maybe it makes some of your family uncomfortable?”

“Yes, it did,” Castiel nods. “Because it makes me extremely uncomfortable knowing that my family’s love is apparently conditional and based on me being heterosexual.”

“Well, you’ve got the drama queen part of it down, at least,” Michael sighs, but ends the conversation there.

Castiel doesn’t return to the couch, opting instead to charge upstairs and rifle through Gabriel’s bag. He finds close to the surface a prescription bottle, its original label scraped off and now home to half a dozen pre-rolled joints.

Castiel pinches one of the smaller ones in his fingers and places it between his lips, and then roots around for a lighter.

He knows he shouldn’t be getting so much pleasure from this, but aside from the deep burn in his lungs and the overwhelming feeling that at any moment he may cough up an entire lung, it’s not as bad as he remembered. And here in the bathtub, on his own, with his feet kicked up on the tile wall, there’s an overwhelming comfort that he’s never found anywhere else.

Not even with Dean. At least, not in the same way.

Castiel does grant him permission to enter when he knocks, however.

Dean shuts the door and crouches beside the bathtub, looking down at Castiel with a disproportionately affectionate look for what he’s just found him doing.

“Your brothers are dicks,” he says.

“I am aware,” Castiel mutters.

“Michael?” Dean whistles. “What a toolbag.”

“Dean, I appreciate what you’re trying to do, but I would really prefer we not discuss this,” Castiel sits up and stares at the smoke unfurling from the end of the joint. He knows Dean is just trying to diffuse the situation, but this whole situation is so crappy that Castiel can’t find the humor in it just now.

Then his buzz comes on, a little more gradually this time, but just as potent. His eyelids go heavy and his limbs loosen up, and like that all of the sharp, hateful sentiments of the day disappear under the haze.

“Feelin’ good, baby?” Dean chuckles.

“Surprisingly, yeah,” Castiel grins. He walks his feet up the wall further, stretching his muscles and letting his body rise into the high.

“Goddamn, you are one bendy son of a bitch,” Dean marvels.

“You know that, though,” Castiel cocks his head, puzzled at how Dean could be so confused by this affirmation.

“Yeah, but I’m starting to think you’re way bendier than I suspected,” Dean claps Castiel on the thigh.

Okay, so they’re going the ‘let’s avoid the big glaring tumor of a problem’ route.

Castiel is perfectly fine with that.

That attitude is, unfortunately, why they get caught on the floor of his and Gabe’s old bedroom—Castiel flat on his back and Dean leaning into him, pushing his knee up to his chest to stretch out his hamstrings, the both of them fully clothed. Castiel busts up in a fit of giggles when Gabriel opens and then quickly shuts the door, and yells at them about his tender, virgin eyes.

And Castiel can’t stop laughing, because he’s in the worst hell he could be in. Everything about this has been poison from the moment he answered that phone call until now, and there Dean is beside him, out of no obligation, out of sheer love, enduring it all with him.

Beaten down and berated, having faced an onslaught of attacks on their lives and their love, and there’s the two of them cackling beside each other on the carpet, unable to catch their breath.

**oo**

 To Gabriel’s credit, when he cooks, he _cooks_. Baker though he may be, he knows his way around a kitchen well enough that he can whip up what might be the most delicious smelling dinner in existence.

Castiel’s stomach gives a hearty gurgle as he sits down between Dean and Lucifer. Gabriel snagged the chair on the other side of Dean before anyone else could.

It’s actually nice to see that one of his brothers is at least fond enough of Dean to want to protect him from the rest of these jackals.

Parents make plates for the kids and set them down at the kids’ table, while Gabriel pours himself a hefty helping of wine. Castiel grabs Dean’s hand under the table and gives it a squeeze. There is no way this man will ever be repaid in full for coming with him, but Castiel figures he can at least start with unlimited blowjobs.

Offer to expire as soon as one of them dies.

He realizes he’s laughing when Dean squeezes his hand and Michael gives him this _look_ across the table.

“All right,” mother claps her hands together down at one end of the table. “Would anyone like to share what they’re thankful for?”

Nobody speaks up, so mother continues, “I’ll start. I’m so thankful to have all of my boys here for the first time in much too long a time.”

“I’m thankful for my family,” Michael says. “My beautiful wife, my boys… Thankful for all of it.”

“And I’m thankful for Norman Rockwell,” Gabriel lifts his glass in a toast, “Who was kind enough to commemorate the evening in one of his stunning paintings.”

Lucifer snorts into his hand.

“Gabriel,” dad warns. “It’s Thanksgiving, let’s put a pin in the sarcasm for one night.”

“Fine,” Gabriel shrugs and then leans over Dean. “Cas, anything you’re thankful for?”

“My boyfriend,” Castiel nods, which earns an eye roll from half the table and Dean dropping his hand under the table. Castiel continues still, “And his family. For taking me in when I had nowhere else to go. I’m thankful that this is probably the last family event that I will be invited to, and I’m thankful that, when everything is said and done, I don’t have to see any of you ever again if I so desire.”

Gabriel coughs on a mouthful of wine and sets the glass down.

“Castiel!” Mother admonishes.

“Well, it’s true,” Castiel shrugs. “And, as I recall, I’m not supposed to lie.”

“You were also not raised to be ungrateful and rude,” mother snaps back, and that’s it.

That’s what does it.

Castiel’s eyebrows go up and before he can stop himself he demands, “I’m rude? Correct me if I’m wrong, but you’re the one who has made me and my partner feel unwelcome in your home.”

“I didn’t make you feel anything, Castiel,” mother closes her fingers around her own glass of wine now. “Anything you feel is one hundred percent on your own head.”

“It is _not_!” Castiel exclaims then, hands flailing wildly. “And even if it was, that’s not an excuse to say any homophobic thing you want without repercussion.”

“Homophobic!” mother laughs. “Castiel, say what you will, but did we make you leave once we found out about your situation?”

“You didn’t kick your queer son out of the house,” Lucifer tosses back. “Well, you’ve done your good deed of the century.”

“Don’t you start in on this too,” mother snaps just as Eve loudly reminds him that there are children _right there_.

“You just can’t stand to see anyone happy living outside of your cookie cutter suburban life,” Lucifer shakes his head. “Never have, never will.”

“Cut the crap, Lucifer,” Michael clips back. “You talk a big game but at the end of the day you settled down.”

Castiel can feel Lucifer go rigid from where he sits. He leans forward then and delivers, dulcet and even, “I got married and had children because I found somebody I loved who wanted to do that with me, not because I didn’t have the balls to tell mommy and daddy that that’s not what I wanted.”

“And it must be so much easier to pass judgment on the rest of us from up there on high,” Michael shakes his head. “How do you see what all the meek little insects below you are doing with your head so far up your own ass?”

“And, what a surprise,” Gabriel slings an arm over the back of his chair. “It’s the Michael and Lucifer show! And here I thought you bastards were only in syndication.”

“Right, pull out the humor, Gabriel,” Lucifer’s voice goes cold. “Because a sarcastic comment and a glass of wine is much easier than dealing with the fact that you live alone and work in a grocery store bakery. You’re not even shooting for the middle, are you?”

Dean leans over to Castiel and murmurs in his ear, “I have to get out of here.”

“Come now, boys,” Lucifer turns to them. “Secrets don’t make friends.”

“Dean has to leave,” Castiel explains very plainly as Dean backs out of his chair and strides out of the room.

Lilith and Eve have long since vacated the table, quite possibly to go eat in the other room with the children and reassure them that everything is okay. Now the six Novaks sit at the table, eyeing each other but not saying a word.

It’s mother who breaks the silence by sighing, “This could have been so lovely.” She looks pointedly then at Castiel.

Castiel shakes his head and runs his fingers through his hair.

“It could have been,” he agrees. “But in the hands of different people. Kinder people. You have managed to frighten the most wonderful person I know, and frankly I don’t think I’ll be able to forgive you for that.”

“And we’re back to the gay thing, of course,” mother rolls her eyes. “Grow up, Castiel.”

“I believe I have,” Castiel winces, concentrating very hard on his mother’s command. “Perhaps it’s time you follow your own advice.”

He stands, and mother asks, “Where do you think you’re going?”

“I’m going to check on my partner,” Castiel replies. “And then I am going to do whatever I can to make him feel better, because that’s what he would do for me. Because that’s what you do for the people you love.”

He adds then with an air of finality, “Fuck all of you,” and goes then to find Dean. 

As expected, he’s in the guest bedroom with all the lights off and the covers pulled up over his head.

“Dean?”

He mumbles something into the bedspread, and Castiel comes in and shuts the door behind him. He crawls under the covers with Dean and wraps his arms around him, burying his nose in the crook of Dean’s neck.

“I am so, so sorry,” he says.

Dean grunts, and for a second Castiel thinks he may have made a mistake, that this may be one of those times that Dean just needs to be alone. He should know better than to poke the bear by now.

Just as Castiel makes to pull away, Dean rolls over and curls into him. Even in the dark Castiel can tell he’s one misplaced word away from tears.

Castiel kisses him on the forehead and keeps his hold on him, hoping that this is enough for now. They stay like that for a little while, Castiel petting his hand over Dean’s hair and murmuring little things to him here and there.

They only pull apart when there’s a knock on the door, followed by Gabriel’s feeble, “Can I come in?”

Dean and Castiel both groan when he turns on the light.

“Mom says she wants you out of here tonight,” Gabriel says.

“I figured as much,” Castiel sighs.

“What the fuck ever, let’s pack our shit and hit the road,” Dean sits up. “I’ll drive all goddamned night if I have to.”

“You can stay the night with me,” Gabriel offers.  “God knows I don’t want to be here if you guys are blowing this fuckin’ popsicle stand.”

“Dean?” Castiel looks to him, and Dean just nods and rubs at his eyes.

“Yeah, whatever,” he mutters. “Just get your shit, I’m done.”

Castiel desperately wants to say something, to comfort him in any way that he can, but he knows there’s nothing that he can say right now. There’s no cure-all to make this better, so he just slips out of bed and follows Gabriel up to their room. Luckily they packed light, and are ready to go within the next ten minutes.

Any residual affection he had for this place, for this life, is gone.

Dean, it turns out, is already out by the truck. The rest of the Novak clan has not moved out of the dining room, and instead seem to be interested only in picking at the meal that Gabriel prepared for them. If they’re attempting to salvage what they can of the evening, it’s a piss-poor attempt.

Castiel’s stomach gives a pained gurgle.

“Well, so nice to see all of you,” Gabriel calls into the dining room. “Let’s do this again never.”

Castiel pushes him out the door and out to the truck. As soon as Dean sees them, he ducks into the driver’s seat and starts up the car.

Except, the car doesn’t start.

It clicks a lot, but it doesn’t start.

“Fuck!” Dean exclaims so loudly they can hear him from midway up the driveway. He gets out of the car and kicks the front tire.

“What’s wrong?” Castiel asks.

“The fuckin’ battery,” Dean mutters. “Will one of you go get someone in there?”

“Yeah,” Gabriel jumps in before Cas can and turns right back around to go into the house. Castiel watches as Dean grabs his jumper cables out of the car and pops the hood of the truck.

“Can I help?” Castiel offers, and Dean snaps back, “ _Just stay there_.”

Gabriel returns with Lucifer a few minutes later. Castiel doesn’t like the smug look on Lucifer’s face as he pulls his car around in front of the truck.

They hook up the cables and Castiel has to watch helplessly from the side as they try to jump start the battery.

And has to watch even more helplessly when it doesn’t work, and Dean gets so frustrated that he sends his car keys through the windshield. Even Lucifer takes a step back as Dean boils over.

“Dean,” Castiel reaches out.

“What did we do?” Dean shouts. “Did we accidentally make some fucking ritual sacrifice to some forgotten god of _everything going wrong_?”

“Should I answer that?” Gabriel asks Castiel.

“You absolutely should not.”

“Dean, relax,” Lucifer pulls his iPhone out of his pocket and pokes around until he finds what he’s looking for and dials. “We’ll get a tow truck and I’ll drive you to the airport.”

“Fuck!” Dean shouts and crouches down in the street. He fists his hands in his hair and Castiel’s stomach turns. Enough is enough, he decides, and walks over beside Dean to bend beside him.

“Baby,” Castiel rubs a hand over his back.

“Cas,” Dean says back, level. “Don’t.”

“Dean, I know you’re upset,” Castiel says very evenly, “I am too, but we have to pull it together.”

Dean inhales sharply as Lucifer details to the tow service where they are and what the nature of the problem is. He white knuckles his hair but keeps any other reaction to himself. He rolls to his feet with Castiel and keeps breathing in through his nose and out through his mouth.

“Okay, someone’s coming for this heap, but I wouldn’t put much stock in getting it fixed,” Lucifer crosses his arms. “This thing’s down for the count.”

“Thank you, I know,” Dean bites back.

“If you need help with your tickets—”

Castiel sighs and brings a hand up to Dean’s neck, rubbing out the tension.

“We’ll be fine,” he says.

“Castiel,” Lucifer crosses his arms. “Come on, it’s no big deal.”

“I know,” Castiel nods. “But I actually do quite well for myself, and so does Dean.”

“Oh, please,” Lucifer rolls his eyes. “You’re a waiter.”

“At a gay bar,” Castiel nods. “And Dean tends bar at the same place. Do you have any idea what we make in tips in a week between us? Don’t presume that people without a degree can’t make money.”

“I never said that,” Lucifer comments back lightly. “So glad to see you living up to your full potential, though, good stuff.”

Whatever impulse control Castiel still has flies out of his body. He surges forward and lets a fist connect all too painfully with Lucifer’s eye. Pain sears up his arm and he clutches his hand, cursing under his breath and stomping his foot because _wow_ that hurt.

“Holy shit,” Dean pulls him back toward him. Lucifer leans against his car, mouth agape and good eye wide.

Lucifer removes his hand and blinks rapidly, skin around his eye already starting to swell up red. He lets out a breath and clears his throat.

“Well, then,” he says. “I guess you boys can take care of yourselves, can’t you?”  

**oo**

 Two hours to the airport and it’s the single most silent, most awkward car ride ever. Castiel’s knuckles are starting to bruise, just like Lucifer’s eye. Dean refuses to make eye contact with anyone, and Gabriel’s attempts to diffuse the tension fall so flat they go concave.

When they get to the loading and unloading zone, Castiel fully intends to walk into the terminal without looking back, but both Gabriel and Lucifer get out of the car. Gabriel pulls Castiel into a hug first—a tight, bone-crushing hug.

“Don’t be a stranger, okay?”

“Of course not,” Castiel says and pulls back.

And then Lucifer hugs him, and Castiel doesn’t understand why.

“You do know I just punched you in the face, right?” he asks.

“Yeah, and you know that I’m still your brother, right?”

He pats Castiel on his cheek when he pulls away and looks on him with this mixture of affection and pity on his face. It makes Castiel want to punch him again, but he refrains.

“If you need anything, call,” he says. “I love you.”

And while Castiel doesn’t doubt that he does, it still makes his skin feel all oily and his bones all itchy.

“You too,” he nods back, though, because he did punch the guy after all.

Dean lets Gabriel hug him. It’s stiff, but better than nothing.

When they finally step into the terminal, Dean manages to get through security before he darts for the bathroom. Castiel has to chase him all the way there, and stops just short of Dean slamming the stall door behind him.

Dean kneels in front of the toilet, but after a few minutes realizes that nothing is coming up. Castiel knocks on the stall door and asks, “Are you okay?”

“Do I seem okay, Cas?”

“No,” Castiel leans against the stall. “You do not. But there’s no reason to take it out on me.”

“Do not read me the fuckin’ riot act right now Cas,” Dean stands and unlocks the stall door. “I hate this week, I hate your family, I hate my fucking car for breaking down, and have I mentioned I fucking hate flying? Because _I fucking hate flying_.”

He takes rapid breaths, and all Castiel can do is watch.

“Dean,” he just says, desperation edging his voice. Dean’s shoulders drop then and he folds his arms over his chest.

“I’m sorry,” he sighs.

“Me too,” Castiel nods back. “I’m really glad we’re going home.”

“Me too,” Dean repeats back to him. He pulls Castiel in against him and holds him tight, tighter even than Gabriel hugged him at the drop-off zone.

“I love you so much, Dean,” is the only thing Castiel can say.

“I love you too,” Dean sniffs. “Never make me see your family again.”

“Absolutely,” Castiel murmurs. “You can hold me to that, most definitely.”


End file.
